Notes from the author:
The New Order story is very dear to me still, but it was written almost in a single breath and under the spell of flu like virus (and it tells – the last chapters are far better than the first).
However, this Prologue is different. It is influenced by some of the most amazing and diverse authors on this site (shout out to Silmarilion279, howlongbeforeyoutalkaboutsand, uselessenglishmajor and casualfreefall).The pacing of this one is faster. The chapters are much shorter. Still, I predict a bitter-sweet ending to this, and I stand behind what happens at the end of my first story, that mammoth of a text called "The New Order".
I remember it well;
I asked you not to go;
But all I heard was the screaming silence of the wind;
And just like the wind will always blow through the leaves;
I will always remember this;
As our last lost chance.
Olafur Arnalds.
Cause you're a hard soul to save; with an ocean in the way; But I'll get around it.
Florence and the Machine.
„Why am I here"?
She speaks to the shadows of that room, her olive-green, hooded cape almost blending in with the grey surroundings. It is so silent here that she lowers her voice to a whisper, fearing both his reaction and that of the crew onboard the "Falcon". But the calm is a deceptive one.
She is not afraid – although this is the last place she needs to be right now and the last man she needs to be talking to under any circumstances.
„I don't know".
His answer is simple in the equal measure and, strangely, she believes him.
He pulls his gloves up. Rey has a feeling he uses them to cover his shame and his regret – or his weakness and his humanity, or everything from the above.
The vast chamber is an Empire-era room. High ceilings, glass windows from top to bottom. Coruscant. Advent of the anniversary of the Empire. He looks at the waving flags and re-grouping troops from his window, with his back turned to her. Soft grey light permeates through the windows as he stands in the counterlight.
He couldn't care less. The Old Republic, the Empire; the Jedi, the Sith – those are remnants of his upbringing and the remnants of his childhood imagination. Nothing more. An absolute nothing.
The realization settles in and it is again so oddly unnerving that she has to vocalize it.
„They plan a coup. They want to arrest you. Assassinate you".
He sounds strangely undeterred, like it's the most natural thing in the world (and with the First Order, it probably is.)
„And your precious Resistance plans to blow the TIE/vn Omega space superiority fighter prototype up".
It is a menial thing in comparison – a joke. Poe suggested it, and she accepted the challenge. She felt strong and re-assured, even if slightly vengeful; and the hit to the very heart of the Empire that is now the First Order is too enticing for her to decline. After Leia's death, the galaxy must know that the Resistance still lives.
But now she thinks it is just a circus act.
„And you intend to do nothing"?
He looks back at her – only then – but says nothing. His gaze impenetrable. He gives off an impression of a man who lives his living hell, day by day. He does so stoically, but there is a cold new determination in him now.
Against the Resistance? No. Nothing. They're nothing.
He tries to break the bond, but he is tired. He surrendered himself to resignation some time ago. And maybe his dying sensory nerves just enjoy her company, be as it may. A mere glitch in his routine – the survival instinct activated like a single forlorn photon in the darkness of his existence.
Another strange realization dawns on her.
„You want to die".
He again says nothing and strides past her.
He picks up his new ceremonial cape, brought to him by his droid that very morning, and attaches it to his shoulders.
She can't do this – she can't solve the puzzle. She won't participate in his death – anyone's death – and staying for too long in here just makes her feel more like a complicit conspirator in a murderous plot.
She tries to break the bond, and the Force indeed bends but then lashes out like a Corulag bamboo, and doesn't dissipate.
Rey sighs.
„So that is the plan? Go out there, get outnumbered, fight until you bring as many as you can with you and then die in the blaze of glory"?
He is again silent. There is weariness about him. A halo of emptiness he carries around ever since he turned against the Jedi: probably even before.
Her master's words come back to her like a weak echo.
Ben – the boy conflicted from the very beginning. I don't say he was a mistake. No one's ever a mistake. But his parents… me… the whole galaxy… we all failed him. We were not up to that task of recognizing the danger that loomed over him. Han was Han, he always objected Jedi ways. He didn't understand them nor did he want to. Leia has been struggling for a long time with the fact our father was Darth Vader. She forgave him eventually, but it took time to heal. And in between, it was Ben whom we lost. Too many losses, Rey – we have to stop them.
But the Resistance can't even help themselves. They had some success stealing a ship from Canto Bight, for sure. And Rey's ever growing abilities struck a chord in self-indulgent, self-complacent war barons. The word of their daring and outrageous adventure spread across the galaxy. But that was just one ship they've stolen and they've escaped only barely. Rey had to use all her Jedi powers to crush that reinforced concrete wall and titanium door. It was majestic – but it left her drained and languid for a long time, for at least half a day. Too long considering they had to flee from one base to another, from one shelter to another, from one sympathizer's home to another – and the list was visibly dwindling.
So, that is the calculation – he never wanted this. He never had the same greedy ambition in him, gnawing at his heart – to become a General, to become a Supreme Leader. He was an idealist, even if a strayed one. Hux was, on the other hand, quite practical.
They were planning this for quite some time, ever since Crait, ever since the Throne Room.
He is completely alone this time. His mother has died of what she felt was a heart-break.
Too many losses.
All paths were cut off for him. If the First Order doesn't kill him, then Resistance will. Or the Nite Owls will, or some other guerilla group without affiliations or a renegade who resents him and wishes to avenge his or her losses. The remaining Hosnian refugees. The families of the fighters lost on Holdo's evacuation mission. Compassionate Rose Tico is in a minority, and even she is in coma.
Or her – but would she, really? She was no murderer.
Time stands still in this strange place. Rey leans even further on her quarterstaff.
(She is tired as well. All this time she was told what to do, ordered to go to that planet or this planet. To find Luke – to save Ben... actually, this was the only thing she actually wanted to do herself. Or did she? Or was she simply manipulated by Snoke?)
She is lost, and she finds that sense of loss similar to his. How strange.
She doesn't know what to tell him, because she doesn't know what to tell herself.
She reacts on an instinct, as she usually does, and on her simple definition of right and wrong. She turns to him as he opens the blast door. The opalescent light of the polluted, heavily populated planet comes gently in.
She blinks in that light that threatens to swallow him.
This feels wrong. This is wrong.
„Ben".
He halts at the door for just a split second, but he doesn't turn back. He is silent as a grave.
He walks out, his cape swaying heavily left and right - the blast door closing swiftly and almost without a sound behind him.
The bond snaps almost painfully, almost like a fractured ligament. She is onboard the „Falcon" again.